A little seasonal color

If there's nothing actually going on, I can always blog about the weather or the scenery. Having blog buddies in other hemisphere (Hi Janette, Denise, Kate and Helen!)reminds me things which are commonplace for me may well be strange and exotic to someone else. Thus I am sharing shots of - Indian corn, dried, and available in the local Safeway, intended almost certainly just for decoration, I wonder if you even COULD eat it?



Dahlias, hardy, bright autumnal perennials. If I had more sun in our yard, I would grow a buncha dahlias! These live in a neighbor's yard.

I would like a party dress this color. Wonder if I could still pull it off? (No, I am not discussing geriatric strip tease. Hmm - now I wonder if anyone has ever tried strip teas? Would that be tea in strps instead of in bags? Or maybe high tea with cakes and finger sandwiches and eccdyists?)

Grey and yellow make an elegant, seasonless colorway. Sweater inspiration?

Lucia once asked me if there was anything I couldn't just wing it on. The answer, in great big letters is, "LACE." Cables and structure and colorways make sense to me, intuitively. But lace - uh uh! I can do feather and fan, having memorized the pattern, but I could no more create a lace pattern than I could bring myself to rip out a sweater that turns out to be too small for my mature figure.

I keep trying to design for the girl I used to be. Wonder how you get over that? Rationally, I know I'm no longer lanky, but when I visualize sweaters on me, the me I visualize is still bone thin. (I was 5'11" and 115 lbs at 15. I got up to 130 in my 20s. Then added fifteen pounds per decade . . .) And I'm still rosy-cheeked and chestnut-haired in my imagination. The inner me got set about age 25 and just hasn't updated. How old is your inner self? And how do you go about choosing sweaters that fit and flatter?

The colors on the diagonal vest worked out wonderfully. I am not modeling it because it does NOT fit and flatter. OK, it sort of fits. It's a tabbard, so what's not to fit? But it doesn't exactly flatter. The wool and nylon tape was lovely to work with (Cameo) and the diagonal knit couldn't be easier. (CO 1. Inc in first stitch every row till it's wide enough along one edge, then decrease first stitch every row till it's all gone. Repeat for the second half.) Sew two corners together to make shoulders. Sew about two inches together on either side to make generous armholes. Tah Dah! Finish the edges if you have enough yarn. I didn't. The weight of this yarn has pulled the work into a rectangle. This is good. Other yarn, knit more tightly might make fabric firm enough to hold square. This is also good. This vest is a colorful thermal layer, and I will be wearing it under jackets this winter. But it just doesn't look as foxy as I had imagined.

Oh, the pattern? Colors A, B, and C. Seed stitch. Work one row of each color. The next color will be waiting for you at the end of the row. The seed stitch blends the colors in. It makes nice scarves, too.